All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror

One Nation Under Blackmail, Vol. 1: The Sordid Union Between Intelligence and Crime that Gave Rise to Jeffrey Epstein

Whitney Alyse Webb · 544 pages

Bridge of Spies: A True Story of the Cold War

Giles Whittell · 274 pages

Who were the three men the American and Soviet superpowers exchanged at Berlin's Glienicke Bridge and Checkpoint Charlie in the first prisoner exchange between East and West? Bridge of Spies traces the paths to that exchange on February 10, 1962. It is the story of three men -- William Fisher, alias Rudolf Abel, a British born KGB agent arrested by the FBI in New York City and jailed as a Soviet s

The Imperial Cruise: A Secret History of Empire and War

James D. Bradley · 387 pages

In 1905 President Teddy Roosevelt dispatched Secretary of War William Howard Taft on the largest U.S. diplomatic mission in history to Hawaii, Japan, the Philippines, China, and Korea. Roosevelt's glamorous twenty-one year old daughter Alice served as mistress of the cruise, which included senators and congressmen. On this trip, Taft concluded secret agreements in Roosevelt's name.In 2005, a centu

The Zimmermann Telegram

Barbara W. Tuchman · 244 pages

The Great Game: The Struggle for Empire in Central Asia

Peter Hopkirk · 570 pages

An account of the encounter last century between the British in India and Tsarist Russia in Central Asia which became known as the "Great Game". When the encounter began the frontiers of Russia and British India lay some 2000 apart. By the end, the gap had shrunk in places to 20 miles.

The Spy and the Traitor: The Greatest Espionage Story of the Cold War

Ben Macintyre · 364 pages

Dead Wake: The Last Crossing of the Lusitania

Erik Larson · 464 pages

It is a story that many of us think we know but don't, and Erik Larson tells it thrillingly, switching between hunter and hunted while painting a larger portrait of America at the height of the Progressive Era. Full of glamour and suspense, Dead Wake brings to life a cast of evocative characters, from famed Boston bookseller Charles Lauriat to pioneering female architect Theodate Pope to President

Argo: How the CIA & Hollywood Pulled Off the Most Audacious Rescue in History

Antonio J. Mendez, Matt Baglio · 314 pages

This is a true story of secret identities and international intrigue; it is the gripping account of the history making collusion between Hollywood and high-stakes espionage. It relates the true account of the 1979 rescue of six American hostages from Iran. On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the American embassy in Tehran and captured dozens of American hostages, sparking a 444-day orde

The Irregulars: Roald Dahl and the British Spy Ring in Wartime Washington

Jennet Conant · 403 pages

When Roald Dahl, a dashing young ex-RAF pilot, took up his post at the British Embassy in Washington, his assignment was to use his good looks, wit, and considerable charm to gain access to the most powerful figures in American political life. Dahl would soon be caught up in a web of deception masterminded by Intrepid, Churchill's legendary spy chief. In an account better suited to a work of s

Tournament of Shadows: The Great Game & the Race for Empire in Central Asia

Karl Ernest Meyer, Shareen Blair Brysac · 647 pages

"The world's oldest established imperial rivalry had its start during the Napoleonic age when British agents came upon the tracks of Russian rivals in snowbound Tibet, and then again in mythic Bokhara, deep in Central Asia. Was the Tsar planning to invade India, or even worse, was Russia bent on global dominion? To foil these real or imagined schemes, the British twice invaded Afghanistan, and in

Neptune's Fortune: The Billion-Dollar Shipwreck and the Ghosts of the Spanish Empire

Julian Sancton · 384 pages

The Twilight War: The Secret History of America's Thirty-Year Conflict with Iran

David Crist · 638 pages

King Leopold's Ghost

Adam Hochschild · 375 pages

In the 1880s, as the European powers were carving up Africa, King Leopold II of Belgium seized for himself the vast and mostly unexplored territory surrounding the Congo River. Carrying out a genocidal plundering of the Congo, he looted its rubber, brutalized its people, and ultimately slashed its population by ten million--all the while shrewdly cultivating his reputation as a great humanitarian.

Last Hope Island: Britain, Occupied Europe, and the Brotherhood That Helped Turn the Tide of War

Lynne Olson · 576 pages

"When the Nazi Blitzkrieg subjugated Europe in World War II, London became the safe haven for the leaders of seven occupied countries--France, Belgium, Holland, Luxembourg, Norway, Czechoslovakia and Poland--who fled there to avoid imprisonment and set up governments in exile to commandeer their resistance efforts. The lone hold-out against Hitler's offensive, Britain became a beacon of hope to th

In the Footsteps of Mr. Kurtz: Living on the Brink of Disaster in Mobutu's Congo

Michela Wrong · 353 pages

Known as "the Leopard," the president of Zaire for thirty-two years, Mobutu Sese Seko, showed all the cunning of his namesake -- seducing Western powers, buying up the opposition, and dominating his people with a devastating combination of brutality and charm. While the population was pauperized, he plundered the country's copper and diamond resources, downing pink champagne in his jungle palace l

A Peace to End All Peace: The Fall Of The Ottoman Empire And The Creation Of The Modern Middle East

David Fromkin · 635 pages

Traces Great Britain's influence on Middle East politics since World War I, and describes Britain's changing interests in the region.

Striking Back: The 1972 Munich Olympics Massacre and Israel's Deadly Response

Aaron J. Klein · 256 pages

The first full account, based on access to key players who have never before spoken, of the Munich Massacre and the Israeli response--a lethal, top secret, thirty-year-long antiterrorism campaign to track down the killers.1972. The Munich Olympics. Palestinian members of the Black September group murder eleven Israeli athletes. Nine hundred million people watch the crisis unfold on television, wit

Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis

Jonathan Blitzer · 544 pages

Operation Paperclip: The Secret Intelligence Program that Brought Nazi Scientists to America

Annie Jacobsen · 614 pages

In the chaos following World War II, the U.S. government faced many difficult decisions, including what to do with the Third Reich's scientific minds. These were the brains behind the Nazis' once-indomitable war machine. So began Operation Paperclip, a decades-long, covert project to bring Hitler's scientists and their families to the United States. Many of these men were accused of war crimes,

Spies Against Armageddon

Dan Raviv, Yossi Melman

Acid Dreams: The CIA, LSD and the Sixties Rebellion

Martin A. Lee, Bruce Shlain · 384 pages

Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Rise of the New Imperialism

Greg Grandin · 292 pages

"This completely revised edition includes new information on the US invasion of Panama, US interventions in Cuba, Guatemala, and Chile, Plan Colombia and the War on Drugs, the Obama administration’s involvement in the 2009 coup in Honduras, and the current crisis at the US-Mexico border, caused by decades of misguided Washington policies. Most provocatively, Grandin argues that the origins of many

Lawrence in Arabia: War, Deceit, Imperial Folly, and the Making of the Modern Middle East

Scott Anderson · 577 pages

This book is a thrilling and revelatory narrative of one of the most epic and consequential episodes in twentieth-century history -- the Arab Revolt and the secret "great game" to control the Middle East. The Arab Revolt against the Turks in World War I was, in the words of T.E. Lawrence, "a sideshow of a sideshow." Amidst the slaughter in European trenches, the Western combatants paid scant atten

Mary's Mosaic: The CIA Conspiracy to Murder John F. Kennedy, Mary Pinchot Meyer, and Their Vision for World Peace

Peter Janney, Dick Russell